Double Blind

A Poem

Photo by Ostap Senyuk on Unsplash

once upon a time,
a woman asked a man,
“is that wall orange?” —
and he looked upon it
with a confused expression

“what wall?”
he asked, no irony,
and she frowned
as the wall began to shift
in technicolor hues alight

it was much the same
no matter who she asked,
passersby and strangers,
scratching their heads
as they stared ahead

“but there’s no wall there”

finally, frustrated, she asked,
“then what do you see?” —
and people were all too keen
to give their opinions
on what they saw instead

“oh, it’s a lovely garden,”
“there’s a park for our children to play in,”
and
“it’s where they’re building a new complex” —
all things the woman couldn’t see
no matter how she tried